lace and sangria.

Lace, and anything peach-flavored, and sangria in a mason jar. Driving a little too fast. Music that's way too loud. Fireflies. That moment when you look around at your family or your friends or both, and they're laughing, and they're smiling, and they're just so damn alive, and you know that you might be the luckiest girl in the world.

I'm so grateful that I knew how much I treasured life before. People assume that cancer somehow makes you more grateful. That it opens your eyes, like the ghost of Christmas Past, and when you're suddenly pronounced cancer-free, that's when you start living.

But I lived before. And I'm so grateful, I could get down on my knees at every moment.

Someone told me that I'll always live a little scared now. That I'll get a headache, or a pain, and become gripped by the fear that the cancer is back--will I die this time? With all due respect to that person, whom I love and hold in great esteem, I won't live that way. Maybe you think I'm naive to believe that I can escape it.

But I won't blaspheme my God. I won't so lightly toss aside His promises, and His hope, and the incredible power He has to change my life, again. What's a little fear in the face of my salvation?

I have to tell you that I didn't feel this way so recently. I was so scared. I hated that I'd always have the terror of knowing what it's like to have everything shatter in an instant. One phone call at 8:46am on December 12. That's all it takes. And I thought, for a while, that this cancer would take my heart, at least, if it hadn't taken my body.

But, the sunshine. The love of so many strangers. The joy of so many so loved. The hope of what might come.

I loved these things before. I knew them before. I cherished them. And in returning to them, I return to my own heart, and there alone is God. Christ is alive in me, in us. Because He died, and then He rose, I don't have to live in fear of my own dying.

So...Bluegrass, and old hymns, and southern poets. Pretty shoes. Mystery novels, casseroles, the sky over Lake Michigan at sunset, an exceptionally great preacher...